Eurasians in Metal

This thread is not an attempt to deny the Indo-European ancestry of a great majority of metal music, but rather a counterpoint to the simplistic, ignorant, and biggoted way in which many Caucasians conceive of metal, and a place for discussing the broader cultural framework of metal.

I remember there being a promo thread a while back for an African band called Crackdust on the news sub-forum. While some individuals questioned the legitimacy of metal as played by black people, the view that metal that is a naturalistic artform and one that can express any health, strong-minded world view of a culture was also aired (by admin, among others).

For many Caucasians, metal is one of the only artforms to exist in contemporary times that speaks to their true heritage, cultures, and tradions. It speaks to a part of their spirit that has modernity has attempted to neutralize, with much success.

While most great metal is Indo-European in its message and design, there are enough people of mixed or non-white origin that have made very significant contributions to metal to make the 'metal=aryan"/"metal=white" type of thought laughable. A few examples:

Kirk HammetAlex Hernandez, ex-ImmolationTom Arya (tan John Travolta)Dave Lombardo (though very white in phenotype, which makes sense given his name)

Matt Olivio of RepulsionPete Sandoval

not to mention any of the great metal Latin American has produced or the Balts/Slavs with mongol admixture who have also produced great etal as well ...

Some people on this board have tried to downplay or put their own spin on the contributions made to metal by mestizos. The good end of Slayer's body of work is attributed to the work of Jeff and Kerry (partly true) while Tom and Dave are described as occupying postions that others could have similarly fufilled (suspect, if not false).

The way in which some have characterised Sepultura's ethnicity also reflects a flawed logic, though people seem much more quick to declare them white, perhaps so they can by association feel some sort of pride. While Max, Igor, Andreas (as well as their 1st guitaist), and Paulo to a lesser extent look predominantely Caucasoid in features, there is also a stong Brazilian element to their indentity and experience. To deny this would be an act of historical revisionism. In their "Under Seige" DVD, in short interview clips between songs, the band acknowleges both the European and Native American elements of their background. Igor is recalled as having gotten his start as a percussionist while playing in drum circles with street musicians in Brazil, Paulo is said to have been choosen for the band because of his cool Brazilian bass, and Andreas tells of the band being mistaken as European tourists by street thugs in Sao Paolo.

To keep things short, projecting your own culture on someone else is as indicative of insecurity as trying to claim someone else's culture as your own (chavs).

This thread is not an attempt to deny the Indo-European ancestry of a great majority of metal music, but rather a counterpoint to the simplistic, ignorant, and biggoted way in which many Caucasians conceive of metal, and a place for discussing the broader cultural framework of metal.

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To keep things short, projecting your own culture on someone else is as indicative of insecurity as trying to claim someone else's culture as your own (chavs).

Sorry to derail this immediately, but I want to stifle potential responses.

Was this kind of defensive rhetoric necessary to make your inventory?

There are very few metal places I know that equate metal with "white" dogmatically; this is certainly not one of them (from a non-moral standpoint), but you come out swinging as if it is. This board doesn't need to be coerced into discussing ideas.

I agree that an artform as conceptually mature as Metal can be utilized by ANY indigenous peoples to express their own signature mythos, but we have to be prudent with ideology. Judaism, for instance: its message would seem very out of place in a musical language that speaks in adventurous freedom [motifs free to evolve, given the right substance and counterpoint]. Perhaps this is why all "unblack" ceases to be even musically significant.

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For many Caucasians, metal is one of the only artforms to exist in contemporary times that speaks to their true heritage, cultures, and tradions.

Then they either just started exploring outside the realm of pop culture or they aren't looking hard enough. There are quite a few Electronic subgenres that have a similar leaning in ideology. "Neo-Classical Darkwave" [Die Verbannten Kinder Evas and all the other Dead Can Dance-philes] is but one of them. I know it's been said many times, but Caucausians, as a whole, are a dying culture, and I highly anticipate what kind of "culture" we'll be able to create after this liberalistic nightmare ends.

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Some people on this board have tried to downplay or put their own spin on the contributions made to metal by mestizos.

I thought these boards have always been completely anti-racist??? A few of srp's articles compared the mindsets of the more generic NSBM with just another strain of the Judeo-Christian virus, wanting to spread its inferior DNA to something inherently alien to it.

"Was this kind of defensive rhetoric necessary to make your inventory?"

I didn't say these thing out of self-defense, but simply because I did not want to be misunderstood. I would not say that this site equates metal with "white" dogmatically, but I've have heard enough silly shit on this board with regard to race to feel a need to bring this up - even some of the more serious-minded members on this board have a habit of using childish racial slurs when something of thoughtfullness or just silence would work much better. I feel that this type of thing allienates from ANUS some very quality people.

Maybe I came across as coming out swinging, probably because I have an exaggerated view of the extent to which the mentality I describe is present here.

I wouldn't call these boards anti-racist, certainly not in the Metalheads Against Racism sense, though I would call the ANUS world-view as racialist, or a healthy mindfullness of natural differences/diversity For the most part, talk of ethnicity and race is grounded in a realistic mind set, but like I said, I've seen some very childish, small-minded racial stuff. Some of it is surely for laughs, but even then it is often a strain on discussion.

And I agree with your first part; I certainly wouldn't include Judaism, at least of the sort exemplified by most Jews as a healthy-minded naturalistic culture/religion.

Take "Metal as European Romanticism" for example. I agree with much of what was said in that thread, but the title is bothersome, because it implies that metal is soley a European artform. "European Metal as Romanticism" makes more sense, because it doesn't do injustice to Metal bands who couldn't really be described as romantic or metal. . The "Aryan Roots of Metal" thread says that "metal was invented by four white lads". But was metal invented by any person, white or not? Did Darwin invent evolution?I don't see how a musical form based on an ancient worldview can be said to be a human invention. Maybe a human discovery or re-discovery.

There was a post in the Chasm section wher Nordic Jew basically asked why so many people were against jews in metal and then a couple of people posted idiotic Vaginal Christ lyrics. I realize that it is a section for casual discussion, but this thing is just silly. The talk about congoids and sandals is funny for only so long.

I wrote this thread after having spent a while away from ANUS, and remembering some threads that I had (regretablly) not responded to .

I can almost assure you that racism has existed in metal since the very beginning and will continue to do so as long as it keeps reaching out to people who can not fool themselves into finding value in the mainstream. You'll find the most in black metal and the least in grindcore (with the exception of Vaginal Jesus, i guess). I'm led to believe that all of this just became more visible in the early nineties when the extreme genre's were at the height of their development, but it was only an issue insofar as individual metalheads were concerned. What i'm saying is that problems like racism show no evidence of being a stifling factor in metal's overall growth as an artform. You could use this as an opportunity to bring up the fact that new nationalist black metal is no different than the raving stupidity of contemporary death metal and grindcore, but is it the so-called RACIST/RACIALIST views of newer nationalist black metal that make it crap? I don't think so. I believe that its the same case of crowdist ingenuity/gimmickery evident in the music of extreme nationalist bands that seriously hurts metal.

The only reason all of this is relevant right now is because a lot of minorities are trying to make sense of their "place" in the metal scene by latching onto it in the same way any OUTSIDER (white, black, etc.) would if he/she could only gain inner meaning by being indoctrinated into some sort of cult. Why else would an individual worry about something like being discriminated against? A person worried about such things is obviously in it for a sense of belonging.

If i were more concerned with that, i'd get out of metal and join a religious group.

. You could use this as an opportunity to bring up the fact that new nationalist black metal is no different than the raving stupidity of contemporary death metal and grindcore, but is it the so-called RACIST/RACIALIST views of newer nationalist black metal that make it crap? I don't think so. I believe that its the same case of crowdist ingenuity/gimmickery evident in the music of extreme nationalist bands that seriously hurts metal.

If i were more concerned with that, i'd get out of metal and join a religious group.

I agree that the crowd-mentality is the problem, and one of the ways that that mentality shows itself is in people trying to revise metal history to accomadate their own warped feelings. If you need Sepultura to be "white" in order for you to like them or understand them, then something really is the matter with you.

I am not worried about discrimination, against myself or others, ( I am a European, by the way) and I certainly have no interest in a religious group. I understand that discrimination and racism are to a certain extent natural, and i would call myself racialist in many ways. But some of the racial-thinking I have witnessed amongst metal fans (and to a small extent ANUS members) is just mindless crowd thought, people needing to feel a sense of belonging, and then trying to reinvent metal so that they can have a place.

I did not start this thread to argue for some sort of multi-culturalism in metal. What I wanted to do was offer a counter-point to the "metal=aryan", "metal=white" thinking and provide some examples of musicians who have made strong contributions to metal.

I agree that the crowd-mentality is the problem, and one of the ways that that mentality shows itself is in people trying to revise metal history to accomadate their own warped feelings. If you need Sepultura to be "white" in order for you to like them or understand them, then something really is the matter with you.

I am not worried about discrimination, against myself or others, ( I am a European, by the way) and I certainly have no interest in a religious group. I understand that discrimination and racism are to a certain extent natural, and i would call myself racialist in many ways. But some of the racial-thinking I have witnessed amongst metal fans (and to a small extent ANUS members) is just mindless crowd thought, people needing to feel a sense of belonging, and then trying to reinvent metal so that they can have a place.

I did not start this thread to argue for some sort of multi-culturalism in metal. What I wanted to do was offer a counter-point to the "metal=aryan", "metal=white" thinking and provide some examples of musicians who have made strong contributions to metal.

Well, i agree with you too. Biggotry is always annoying to deal with, but you can't counter that sort of stupidity by giving someone a list of names and saying, "Hey, his dick his brown, but he can fucking shred!" I'm sorry if i insinuated that you were a minority who was having issues fitting in with your local metal community. I was having some trouble understanding your reasons for the post. You seem smart enough to know that history is never a complete, factual account and when we're talking about the history of metal, its even worse because the people involved are fans, making the entire process quite biased. If you're worried about people revising metal history, you should really turn your guns toward MTV, Roadrunner Records, those heavy metal cunts Julia/Sanaz, or whoever is creating a false image of metal for the mainstream populace. To tell you the truth, i think its kind of useless to fight fire with fire in this situation because regardless of what you say in their defense, youre always going to turn peoples' attention toward insignificant factors like the individual members of the band or their skin color. You basically fall into the same gaps as those biggoted clowns by focusing on the same factors that have nothing to do with the music, except you just take it in the other direction and end up sounding like an average democrat (no offense).

I realize what youre saying here, but i just dont think youre approaching the problem in the right way.

(This probably sounds like an attack, but i'm just trying to bring the real issues into focus)

shadowmystic

Ideologically, metal is a European artform, continuing in that tradition. I don't think we need to deny this just for the sake of not excluding a few non-european quality bands. It's nothing to do with racism, but an acknowledgment of what metal is. It is exclusively western in what it attempts to communicate.

Thank you for responding constructively. I probably didn't present the information in the best way. My point was not to say "Hey, his dick his brown, but he can fucking shred!", but rather to present a few examples of metal musicians whose work represents cultures that exist outside of this European sphere in which many people place metal.

"You basically fall into the same gaps as those biggoted clowns by focusing on the same factors that have nothing to do with the music"

How does a person's racial/ethnic background have nothing to do with the music? A lot of the thought processes and sensibilites that go into making music are directed by the musician's culture.

It's like saying Varg's Norweigan heritage had nothing to do with his music.

How does a person's racial/ethnic background have nothing to do with the music? A lot of the thought processes and sensibilites that go into making music are directed by the musician's culture.

It's like saying Varg's Norweigan heritage had nothing to do with his music.

Well, thats not a bad question, but racial background doesnt always correspond entirely to a person's culture. We have to ask whether, ON AVERAGE, your white South/Central American is more representative of that particular culture than a mixed or black South/Central American. I admit that i often avoid this sort of discussion because its just too speculative. Now, i totally agree that the person's CULTURE is a factor. I personally don't think that Morbid Angel could have come out of any place other than the US and Burzum out of Norway. I think metal as a whole relied on the industrialized nations within which it was spawned, so this was basically a cultural prerequisite for it, otherwise it would have been in a radically different form (much less abrasive, i think). Or maybe it just would have sounded like some new wave type of folk music...

I guess, if you're going to say that metal is an Indo-European artform, you might believe that it was the Indo-European culture that brought it into existence, so it stands to reason that people who are of so-called Aryan stock are the real creators, whereas everyone else is simply a follower or just a racially misplaced person (ex: black metal guitarist in America) who is capable enough to understand and further the music.

...but its stupid to say that you need white skin to create good metal. To me, if metal was exactly as it was, but totally rooted in the Semetic culture, i'd still be a fanatic. Rest assured that most of the people who hate good bands simply because there is a foreign member in the group are normally the superficial listeners who simply consume the aesthetic, but have absolutely no clue what's really being communicated. These are the types of listeners (if you want to call them that) that only buy music from talentless Nazi bands that excessively use the N word to give their lack of delivery a touch of power.